OREANDA-NEWS. April 23, 2012. Transcript of the beginning of the meeting: Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues. We are all aware that the Ministry of Economic Development plays a special role. You are not merely responsible for current economic performance, proper use of market regulations and the business environment. Your ministry develops concepts of system-wide reforms and calculates benchmarks and future scenarios. Your professionalism and grasp of the subtleties involved in economic processes were on full display during the crisis. We all remember those difficult months. The cost of each decision was inordinately high. We had to focus on the task at hand, preserve the balance of interests of all economic sectors and identify pinpoint solutions for individual enterprises and regions. Back then it was the Ministry of Economic Development that was at the forefront of all anti-crisis measures taken by the government.

I believe that we managed to achieve a lot together. We avoided the temptation of easy solutions and measures at a time when there were proposals to solve all economic problems by handing out money or fully nationalising the economy. We managed to preserve macroeconomic stability and did not give up system-wide reforms and continued to follow the path of development. We did not lose perspective. I have mentioned nationalisation of whole branches of the economy, and of major companies which took place at that time.

Currently, the ministry is working on new measures to continue privatisation. There should be no simple solutions in this area, either. The decisions should invariably be balanced and consistent with long-term economic goals and also be in line with the existing economic situation.

We are currently at a very important crossroads. We are about to take decisions which will set the direction and long-term trend of economic development. Russia’s economy must have higher growth rates than the global GDP in the next decade. In addition to growth volumes, we need a new quality of economic growth, which your minister, your experts and I have mentioned on many occasions.